Editor’s Note: I was without internet access for awhile, so even though I did write one essay per day as I wanted to for NaNoWriMo, the essays weren’t able to be uploaded until now. I will solve this by changing the publication date of each essay to the date I intended to publish the essay on.

Yet another Weekly Link Roundup? What is this world coming to? …A world with site news and links, I suppose. To the standard drill!

First, a NaNoWriMo update! Pursuant to my NaNoWriMo Experiment to write 50,000+ words over 30+ essays throughout the month of May, I’m happy to report that with the publishing of this Weekly Link Roundup #15, the totals are now at… drumroll… 35659 words (71.32%) and 19 posts (63.33%), with 40697 words once you add what I’ve written in responses back to comments.

Second, a recap of this week’s posts! On Sunday, I wrote “The Spectre of Scientism” about how scientism is obviously false and shouldn’t actually be held by any naturalist, though at the same time a naturalist can strongly support empirical methods without succumbing to scientism. Instead, we should use science, history, logic, and personal experience while ignoring everything else.

On Monday and Tuesday, I wrote Clarifying Comments on Ought, Part I and Part II, clarifying and explaining more of what I thought of as defining “ought” through hypothetical imperatives. I later realized that even these clarifications are not sufficient and I need to dramatically reorganize my approach to explaining oughtness, thus setting up Wednesday’s “My NaNoWriMo Dilemma” about what to do with these incomplete posts.

For Thursday and Friday, I wrote “Identity Confusion as Definition Confusion, Part I and Part II about how philosophical problems of identity (Who am I, distinct from all other persons? Am I the same person I was yesterday?) are confusions about multiple definitions of identity that give us different answers.

Now for the links, with the following three clarifications / disclaimers! (1) the links are also ordered so that the ones I like most are at the top, for those who don’t have time for all the links… but for those who do have time, I think all of them are worthwhile.

(2) The Link Roundup category has, I’d estimate, over 250 more links if you need the extra distraction. I don’t even think you could read them all before the next week brings you more links!

(3) I don’t necessarily agree with everything said by these links; I just post what I find to be interesting and well-written.

• A Letter to my Students: “The bad news is that you have been the victims of a terrible swindle, denied an inheritance you deserve by contract and by your merits. And you aren’t the only ones; victims of this ripoff include the students who were on your left and on your right in high school but didn’t get into Cal, a whole generation stiffed by mine. This letter is an apology, and more usefully, perhaps a signal to start demanding what’s been taken from you so you can pass it on with interest.”
• Avoiding Your Belief’s Real Weak Points: “There is a tradition of inquiry. But you only attack targets for purposes of defending them. You only attack targets you know you can defend. In Modern Orthodox Judaism I have not heard much emphasis of the virtues of blind faith. You’re allowed to doubt. You’re just not allowed to successfully doubt.”
• Are Your Enemies Innately Evil?: “Realistically, most people don’t construct their life stories with themselves as the villains. Everyone is the hero of their own story. The Enemy’s story, as seen by the Enemy, is not going to make the Enemy look bad. If you try to construe motivations that would make the Enemy look bad, you’ll end up flat wrong about what actually goes on in the Enemy’s mind.”
• How to Prioritize: “Virtually every time management system teaches that you must prioritize your projects to make sure you’re working on what’s truly important instead of getting caught up in minor things. However, few systems explain precisely how to do this. How do you decide which task is really the most important at any given time?”
• The Proper Use of Humility: “It is widely recognized that good science requires some kind of humility. What sort of humility is more controversial.”
• The Top Idea in Your Mind: “I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I’d thought. I knew it was a good time to have ideas. Now I’d go further: now I’d say it’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.”
• Is Philosophy Just a Matter of Opinion?: “Those who fall victim to this misconception assume that there are no better or worse opinions on philosophical matters. So, any position is as good as any other and there is really no point in discussing it. From this is generally thought that once you have stated your opinion, that is enough and it should be accepted as being as good as anyone else’s opinion. [...] These assumptions are appealing, but mistaken.”
• Occam’s Razor: “Occam’s Razor is often phrased as ‘The simplest explanation that fits the facts.’ Robert Heinlein replied that the simplest explanation is ‘The lady down the street is a witch; she did it.’ One observes that the length of an English sentence is not a good way to measure ‘complexity’. And ‘fitting’ the facts by merely failing to prohibit them is insufficient.”
• A Priori: “Consider the problem of Occam’s Razor, as confronted by Traditional philosophers. If two hypotheses fit the same observations equally well, why believe the simpler one is more likely to be true?”
• So Andrew Sullivan is an Atheist: “And it’s annoying when people like Sullivan go around telling atheists ‘Ah ha! You’re really a theist, based on my idiosyncratic definition of God!’ It would be one thing if they said, ‘Yes, by most people’s definitions I’m an atheist, but I prefer to define my terms differently.’ But to go around telling atheists they’re really theists, as if it’s possible to win an argument by redefining words, is just dumb.”
• The Truth About Violence: “Just as it is prudent to wear your seat belt while driving, it makes sense to know how best to respond to violence. In fact, it is overwhelmingly likely that some of you will become the targets of violence in the future. The purpose of this essay is to help you prepare for it.”
• What Part of “Nothing” Don’t You Understand?: “Pop science writers (including scientists when they are writing pop science) are always trying to translate traditional philosophical issues into terms they are familiar with. At best the result is, usually, to change the subject while pretending not to. At worst it is sheer nonsense. And sometimes it is both.”

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